st near Khan Yunus, where glorious sea-bathing was to be had; it
was, in fact, the only thing to do.

You started the day by a wild sprint across the short stretch of beach
between the tents and the sea, finishing up with a headlong dash into the
water, which was just cold enough to make the body tingle, but imparted
none of the shock that comes with the morning tub at home. This gave you an
appetite for breakfast, if any such aid were needed. When the sun grew hot
towards the middle of the morning you went in the sea again and stayed
there for an hour or two, with an occasional sprawl on the warm sand by way
of a sun-bath.

If you felt particularly energetic a pair of ancient drill shorts rolled up
and tied with a piece of a head-rope made quite an adequate ball for
water-polo, until it became water-logged and sank to the bottom; then you
had to fish it out and spread it on the sands until it was dry enough to
resume duty. A few units used footballs for water-polo, but this was mere
luxury. Ours, worse luck, always had a puncture somewhere in its internal
economy.

Another camp on a similar but larger scale was the attractively named
"Change of Air" Camp at El Arish, which could accommodate some thousands of
men at a time. Here the tents were pitched almost at the water's edge. Men
divided their day between lounging about in their pyjamas and bathing,
whilst in the evening they could sit and listen to one of the numerous
concert parties who came up the line from Egypt. There was also a library
of sorts; it was, rather, an olla podrida of books, some left by the troops
themselves, but largely cast-offs from the stately homes of England,
ranging in variety from the admirable racing-stories of Mr. Nat Gould to a
learned treatise on bee-keeping, the latter evidently intended by the
sender as a guide to budding colonists in the Land of Canaan.

Many thousands of the troops in Palestine will, I fancy, have pleasant
memories of these two camps, if only because you could, if you wished,
bathe for twenty-four hours every day; and it was a wonderful sensation to
feel really clean.

Those who had the misfortune to sojourn for a while at Deir Sineid,
however, will remember the Rest Camp there with quite different feelings.

This was established during the rainy season of 1917-18, and most of the
rain in Palestine fell on the Rest Camp. Troops returning from Kantara to
rejoin the Desert Corps stopped at Deir Sineid _en route_.